Chapter Ten

Ness was well aware he’d lived a life of privilege. Even back before paranormals were known to the population in general, he came from a strong and respectable family who had always been associated with people in power. Whether it was being the adviser to kings and warriors in times of old, or living as a family of influence in remote areas around the world, Ness’s family had always been well-off compared to the standards at the time. They were people who used their long lives to see and capitalize on trade routes as the world slowly opened up.

Wealth brought privilege. In the days before technology, it was easy for Ness’s father to move his family from one area to another when the lack of aging became problematic, carrying with him letters of recommendation that introduced him to other society leaders. There had never been a time when Ness had to struggle for anything. He’d worked hard – he still did. His father instilled in him a strong work ethic, to the point Ness worried if he took a week off. But he’d never struggled. If one plan didn’t work, another one would, and Ness had learned over the years how to cut his losses before they got too great and move on.

The only issue Ness had during his very long life was the fact he had to keep moving every ten to twenty years. But then, just fifty years before, paranormals came out to the general population. Although Ness was from a very rare species of shifter, he could and did move his main base of operation to a shifter town, Arrowtown, and generally didn’t have to worry about his lack of aging anymore.

In all of the time Ness had walked the earth, he never expected to be faced with a mate who’d come from the other side of the tracks, someone who’d spent their years pulling themselves up from nothing, and genuinely making something of himself. Ness couldn’t deny that Cyrus had the same work ethic he did – he’d seen examples of Cyrus keeping track of his many businesses just in the short few days they’d been together. But Cyrus didn’t work alone the way Ness did. He had a family behind him, or underneath him – Ness wasn’t sure of the dynamic just yet. But there was no denying his mate had a made family who could see Cyrus ending up in jail if he wasn’t careful.

“I have this urge to apologize for what you went through in your life, even though your upbringing had absolutely nothing to do with me,” Ness said slowly. “I’m going to believe that you don’t randomly go around killing people just for shits and giggles. You wouldn’t have been blessed with a fated mate if you were evil to the core, and I don’t believe you are. My concern about what I saw in your office and heard during your call presumably to the person responsible for the mess in your office,” he added, meeting Cyrus’s eyes, “is that your strong ties and loyalty to the people you call family could get you into considerable trouble, causing issues for you and me as a couple.”

“I’ve never killed anyone who wasn’t trying to kill me first, and I’ve never authorized a kill unless the person due for death hadn’t physically hurt someone in my family first.”

“Which is really no different to how any shifter sees the world in a way.” Ness nodded. “Most shifters will protect their loved ones and see nothing wrong with killing someone who harms them.”

Cyrus eyed him, his black eyes intense. “You don’t see things that way?”

“It’s never been our way – my species, I mean.” Ness chuckled. “In reality, that’s probably why there are so few of us left. Our beast is passive. We tend to be solitary, we prefer to live in remote areas, and we are a lot happier when people leave us alone. I’m not saying I wouldn’t fight for you, I’m saying I’d always hope I wouldn’t have to. In my family, there were more ways of getting at a person, particularly a non-para, than by taking their life. Ruining their businesses, taking them to court…but…but…I’m saying this from the perspective where no one has ever physically attacked me before.”

Ness could see Cyrus didn’t understand, and with the brief stories Cyrus had mentioned about how he was raised that was understandable. Talking in abstracts wasn’t going to help. He needed for Cyrus to see how the morning’s events impacted them personally. “I’m not saying that you did wrong in any of this. I don’t need the details. You didn’t make the kill. Instead, you allowed two men…?” He trailed off, looking for confirmation.

“Roman and Jon, they’re brothers. Two of their sisters were badly abused by a paying client at the hotel, causing lasting physical injuries. That is unacceptable to me, and as you heard, their mama, as well, who is a very strong and well-respected older woman within the family.”

“I’m sorry the two women went through that,” Ness said, and he was being sincere. Ladies of the night had been an established part of society since man learned what his dick was for. Ness had always maintained that anyone, regardless of gender, who sold their bodies should have the same rights to protection and feeling safe as anyone else. “My issue is with the state of your office and the way we found it.”

There was a small bell sound, and Cyrus nodded. “Hold that thought. The food is here.” He got up and left the dining room. Ness heard the sound of the door opening and the soft sound of voices before the door closed again. Seconds later Cyrus was back.

“Did you want to eat first, talk while we eat, or should I put this in the oven to stay warm while we talk?”

His mate was still nervous, Ness’s animal side let him know that. And while it was tempting to just let the whole matter drop, Ness genuinely believed they were at a crucial point in their mating. He could either turn a blind eye and just pray Cyrus kept himself out of trouble, or he could make a concerted effort to be an honest partner in Cyrus’s life. Honesty won out.

“I can talk and eat. I was the one who said I was hungry, and that food does smell good. Thank you.”

It took a few minutes to get things organized – minutes Ness used to get his thoughts in order. “The way I see it,” he said once Cyrus was eating as well, “the issue is that you trusted your men to follow a certain procedure, I assume, related to their killing someone, and those men let you down.”

“On multiple fronts, from what I understand. I’m still going to have to get in touch with my contacts and find out what sort of a mess the body being found in that garage is going to cause. There’s also the little matter of someone dealing drugs out of a garage in my territory, which is not something I allow.”

There was a certain menace in Cyrus’s voice that Ness shouldn’t have found exciting, but his dick perked up as if someone flicked a switch. Ness forced himself to concentrate on his food and their conversation.

“I believe that might be one of the problems with having such a large territory and a family you’re responsible for. If we take the body being found, for example” – I can’t believe I am having this conversation while I’m eating – “if something had happened within this hotel such as a fire, flood, issue with the sprinklers, or whatever else, and people in authority needed access to your office, then you just know someone would be taking DNA samples from that carpet, tying you personally to a dead body found in a drug dealer’s garage.”

“Which is why Roman and Jon and the rest of their family are on their way to Sicily.” Cyrus sighed. “I can’t believe they fucked that situation up so badly. I would’ve noticed it earlier, obviously, but I disappeared to Scotland that same day.”

Again, Ness didn’t feel Cyrus was assigning blame or anything else, just stating his facts. “What type of paranormal are Roman and Jon?”

“Human, and before you ask, the paying client who met a grisly end was human, too.”

That was surprising and even more worrying. “I think this is where we have a problem, mate of mine,” Ness said bluntly. “The laws pertaining to humans criminal behavior are drastically different from the justice administered by the paranormal council. You facilitated a situation where two men killed another in cold blood, in your office. The reason why, in a human court of law, isn’t going to mean shit to them. What the media and prosecutors would try and turn that case into, because there are still pockets of resistance to a shifter’s existence overall, is a case where a predatory shifter encouraged two humans to take out a defenseless man, again it doesn’t matter why,” he added as Cyrus opened his mouth to speak.

“An eye for an eye and a death for harming a loved one are shifter concepts upheld by the paranormal council and relates to paranormal on paranormal cases. Human laws are very different.”

“The brothers had a right to their vengeance,” Cyrus said around a mouthful of potato.

“Fair enough. But why was that vengeance carried out in your office? The ladies went to their client’s room, yes? Why wasn’t the man killed in his room once you found out what he’d done? Better still, why wasn’t that same man spirited away from the hotel and killed in the desert? Why was it here? Why in your office? From what you’ve told me, you’ve had over seven hundred years’ worth of experience when it comes to killing people and disposing of bodies. What possessed you to let something like that happen in your office, which you said yourself was the hub of your organization?”

“You’re upset with me because of where the man was killed?”

There was a lot of surprise in Cyrus’s tone, but Ness was working up to a full head of steam. “Damn straight I am. If you have to do anything like this for any freaking reason, then doesn’t it make sense to do it in such a way that you won’t get caught? The man’s body was probably found with his hotel keycard still in his jacket pocket or something ridiculous, and that’s without the DNA issue. You might just have well taken out an advertisement and said you and your men were responsible. For fuck’s sake!”

Ness blew out a long breath and then picked up a forkful of food and stuffed it in his mouth before he said anything else. Killing was not an effective way of dealing with problems and not the kind of thing Ness wanted to encourage in his mate, although his mind had already come up with a list of a dozen ways the situation in Cyrus’s office could’ve been avoided.